Thiruvananthapuram: Taurus Downtown Technopark, the mixed-use, IT office and social infrastructure project planned in Technopark Phase III, will have some innovative features. Taurus Investment Holdings (TIH), developers of the five-million-sq-ft facility, is planning to introduce features that will make it more energy efficient.

TIH is planning to use geothermalcooling system for its air conditioners. Ajay Prasad, country head of Taurus, said that the geothermal cooling system will help save around 280 million litres of water per day. "Saving 280 million litres per day will be a major step in water conservation considering the fact that the daily requirement of water in the city is almost the same," said Ajay. The quantity of water supplied by Kerala water authority to the city is 300 mld.

Geothermal cooling is a fast growing trend in European countries. While the conventional air conditioning system absorbs heat from indoors and evaporates the water vapour into the atmosphere, the geothermal cooling mechanism exchanges heat into the ground using a loop, thus the water is not wasted. The same mechanism is used for geothermal heating of buildings. Ajay said that they geothermal system has been successfully used in their ventures in the US. "In addition to save water, the system will help in saving 40% of electrical energy," he said.

The facility will be utilized to save water and power in the 20-acre campus in the phase III.

The Taurus plans to build Downtown as a LEED gold building. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is an internationally recognized green building certification system based on energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, etc.

Ajay said that digitally-enabled building navigation system will be used so that people won't get lost inside the mall. "Now everybody uses smartphone. We will make all system digitally enabled so that people could manage everything from navigation to parking using their smartphones," he said.

The project was awarded to Taurus in October 2014 through a Swiss challenge bid. Taurus and Technopark signed the framework agreement for in September last year. The developers are on the process of getting environment clearance for the project. The ground breaking is planning by new year. The Downtown Technopark will be operational in the phase III campus by 2019.